Hindawi Publishing Corporation Anatomy Research International Volume 2014, Article ID 256105, 2 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/256105 Letter to the Editor Imhotep and the Discovery of Cerebrospinal Fluid Patric Blomstedt Department of Pharmacology and Clinical Neuroscience, UmeaUniversity,SE-90185Ume˚ a,˚ Sweden Correspondence should be addressed to Patric Blomstedt;
[email protected] Received 2 February 2014; Accepted 21 February 2014; Published 13 March 2014 Academic Editor: Feng C. Zhou Copyright © 2014 Patric Blomstedt. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Herbowski (2013) suggested recently the Egyptian Imhotep from the 3rd dynasty in Egypt to be the discoverer of cerebrospinal fluid. There are, however, no sources within the first 2000 years after Imhotep suggesting him to be in any way connected with the field of medicine. Over the course of three millennia Imhotep evolves into the sage who besides architecture also masters the arts of medicine, magic, astronomy, and astrology, at the same time as him being transformed from man to demi-God, and finally to a God. The identification of Imhotep as a doctor has thus little to do with facts and it is unlikely that he had anything to do withthe Edwin-Smith papyrus from a much later period where CSF is first mentioned. I read with interest the paper by Herbowski [1]. only few, very short inscriptions regarding Imhotep that are I would like to thank the author for his commendable closeintime,andnoneofthesesuggeststhathewasa desiretocontributetothehistoryofthisarea.Thereis, physician or had any medical knowledge [2].